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Andor watched her over the fire, his expression thoughtful and soft. “Sleep for a few hours. You are useless on the road being tired like this. When you wake up, we will resume our journey.”
Cathy was tired. Her feet were nice and warm in front of the fire, and her limbs ached from struggling with her captors. Now that the danger was behind them and she had eaten something and was warm again, her body was as heavy as a sack of rocks. “Okay, but then you.”
“We shall see.”
She looked at him, considering something. “Your lap looks very soft,” she said.
“What?”
She crawled up next to him instead of answering, stretched out on the ground, and lay her head at the crease of his hip and his leg. She cuddled deeper into her cloak.
“You look tough on the outside, but your lap is strangely cozy,” she said, nestling with her head to get comfortable. “See, I’m almost over your knee, just as you wanted.”
He didn’t move, didn’t even breathe, one arm went totally still in the air above her. Then slowly, he lowered it and rested his hand on her shoulder. Even through the layers of clothes, his touch went through her in a wave of sweet warmth. Cathy felt him pull his cloak over her.
She sighed and closed her eyes, his leg firm and warm under her cheek, his stomach moving against the back of her head as he breathed.
As Cathy started to drift off, the memory of Brad’s head lying on her lap filled her mind. They’d been dating for a month and it was the first time he’d spent the night, the first time they’d been intimate. She couldn’t believe he liked her, and had expected him to leave like a jerk the next morning. But he didn’t. He stayed for breakfast. Later, they went out for lunch at a vegan street-food festival. Then they went to the beach and he taught her how to surf, after which they had sat on the sand, and Brad had lain his head in her lap just like she was doing with Andor now.
She had brushed Brad’s wet curly hair, like liquid gold against his tanned skin, and gently caressed his face. His eyes had been closed and he’d moaned, smiling.
“I think I’m falling for you, Cathy,” he’d said, then froze and looked at her, his blue eyes soft and fragile.
Her chest had exploded in tenderness, and tears had gathered in the corners of her eyes. Her affirmations must have been working because the man of her dreams lay in her lap looking at her like that. Speaking words of love.
“Me, too, Brad,” was all she could manage.
And now Brad was so many years away from her. And if he wasn’t on life support, he’d be gone.
Gone…
Was she really accepting that?
A tear crawled from her eye down to Andor’s trousers. “Was it hard, when she died?” she asked.
He tensed, the muscles of his thigh turning into hardwood under her cheek, his stomach behind her back a flat stone.
“What?”
“I—I might need to accept the possibility that Brad will die. So I want to know how to deal with that. How did you?”
He didn’t answer for a long time, and when he did, his voice came out cracked and broken. “I may not be the one you should ask. I do not think that I did.”
“Oh.”
Cathy watched the fire, acutely aware of Andor’s tension. His pain was almost palpable through his hard skin. “Is that what’s haunting you? Your wife?”
“No.” He shifted. “She is not haunting me. It was my fault. I killed her.”
Cathy sat up, her eyes wide. He met her gaze with a grimace of sorrow, his eyes bloodshot and watery, his face ashen.
“What?” she said.
“We were wed not but a year when I went raiding with the Viking forces in Bretland. I had promised her that I would return before the harvest festival. But Ubba asked me to raid the Wilham Monastery and get the jeweled Bible. Ubba knew that the king would pay dearly in fertile farmland, which is why we invaded in the first place. Ubba could have thrown thousands of men into a battle to win those lands, but he had a better idea of how to outwit the Saxons. Using cunning and the enemy’s weakness to gain what we seek without losing lives is a good thing. A smart thing. I could have refused Ubba, but he’d promised me to make me his second-in-command. Following my pride, my drive for glory and fame, I broke my word to Svana. I thought that she’d rejoice over the riches I would bring home, the land I would win us. That she’d forgive me my neglect when I showered her with gold and silver.”
He swallowed hard then talked through clenched teeth. “But she never harbored any anger towards me. She was busy protecting herself and our people from Jarl Elgr’s men who had come for my treasure. I returned as the village was being attacked and burned, and they waited for us. Svana had been stabbed… She died in my arms.”
Cathy’s eyes filled with tears again.
